Panel Paper:
New Evidence on the Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods for Abortion
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Plaza Building: Concourse Level, Plaza Court 7 (Sheraton Denver Downtown)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
We examine the effects of a 2015 Tennessee law that requires women to wait 48 hours after counseling before obtaining an abortion. Previous studies examining mandatory waiting periods focused on early-adopting states in the 1990s, when women faced fewer restrictions to access abortion. Today, women typically have to travel farther to reach their nearest abortion clinic and most states have mandatory waiting periods. Thus, these restrictions require women to travel greater distances than in the past, particularly for women who want to avoid them. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the introduction of a mandatory waiting period in Tennessee caused a 50 percent increase in the share of abortions obtained during the second trimester, completely closing the pre-existing gap between Tennessee and the comparison states. We find no evidence that the waiting period affected the overall abortion rate. Thus, these results imply that the mandatory waiting period did not prevent a significant number of women from getting an abortion; rather, it caused them to get abortions in a later stage of their pregnancy.
Full Paper:
- LindoPineda_MWP.pdf (3572.4KB)
